The Clock Tower (France)

The Clock Tower (France)

I’d walked this path before, on my first night in this rural French town. It was dark then, almost midnight, when we’d all wandered the path around the orchard, getting to know each other. I’d seen the clock tower then, lit up at night.

This was my second time walking the path, this time at sunset. It was my first view of this tiny, gentle farming town from afar, a place that seemed lost in time. There were moments when you could almost believe that it was still 1890 and life hadn’t changed at all.

That purple-indigo clock tower glowing against the brilliant pink-yellow of the sky, high on its hill, watching over this town for time out of mind.

It had stood there for 900 years, ringing in the day and ringing it out again. Calling in the workers from the fields for prayers, for food, for rest. It still rang the same pattern every day – every hour, and then at other times, still reminding its people of prayer, of pausing. Chiming out for matins, lauds, vespers, signalling the beginning and the end of each prayer period. (If the 7am tolling didn’t wake you up, the 7:10am one did!)